


Savior

by ikita



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gabriel (Supernatural) Lives, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Post-Episode: s13e22 Exodus, Suicide Attempt, and then became something, idk how this was mostly vent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-28 00:02:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16712578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ikita/pseuds/ikita
Summary: Gabriel returns and stays for a bit longer than planned, thanks to Sam.





	Savior

**Author's Note:**

> Don’t ask for context, because there is none. Honestly, I tried to think of some but ultimately failed. This was vent writing and it became something I liked, so here it is.
> 
> Thanks for reading and enjoy this angst because apparently I can’t write anything that’s not angst.

It was a quiet day. Without those from the alternate world taking shelter in the bunker, everything was quieter; not that Sam would complain about it. He had taken to resting in the library, his legs propped against the table as he read through the books he placed aside to read months ago while doing inventory. Dean had come in and out of the room, sometimes with a plate of food, sometimes holding a book. Sometimes he’d walk past the entry way, stop and look in for a moment, and then continue on his way. Sam was fairly certain his brother wasn’t sure what to do with himself while having so few obligations.

Even Castiel seemed lost, stopping by for a few seconds, having asked if there was anything he could do the first few times before giving up. Eventually both Dean and Cas seemed to find occupying themselves futile, Dean taking a seat across from Sam, tapping his fingers along the desk, while Cas leaned against the wall behind him.

“Maybe we can get out,” Dean suggested, continuing to fidget in his seat. “Explore the town a bit?”

Sam raised his gaze from the book, not long enough for Dean to notice, before continuing to read with a quiet sound of acknowledgment.

“Not that there’s much in Lebanon.” The lack of actual response wasn’t a hindrance to Dean’s speaking, and the older Winchester continued his rambling as Sam faded it out to continue his reading. Nothing would come of Dean’s plans anyways, it never did, but he needed to occupy himself somehow. Cas was aware enough of that to let Dean speak uninterrupted as well. “We could take Baby on a roadtrip, go from town to town, stay in run down motels. Just like old times, except no cases. Nothing to kill.” He slammed the hand he had been tapping down on the desk. “An actual vacation for once?”

It was a question, and one he expected an answer to unlike the rest of his words. But Sam didn’t need to speak to respond, he simply looked up and raised an eyebrow.

Dean got the gist of it. “Yeah, no vacation. Too big of a reach.”

It was the end of the statement, yet something felt cut off about Dean’s abrupt halt to his speech. He turned his head to the entryway, his eyes glued to the stairs leading from the war room to the library. Something was definitely off.

Sam marked his place in the book, closed it, and set it on the desk in front of him. He followed Dean’s gaze and--

He must’ve been seeing something, because the figure partly collapsed on the stairs looked all too familiar, right down to the outfit he was wearing the last time they saw him. The outfit he was wearing when he died.

“Gabriel?” Sam turned to the source of the voice, finding that Castiel had moved behind Dean’s seat to see what had happened as well. Almost instantly, Sam turned away again, watching the figure, _Gabriel,_ grasp the side of the stairs to hold himself up. With a huff, he raised his head, hair falling out of place and over his eyes.

“Miss me?” There was an attempt at humor, attempt to make his tone lighthearted. It ultimately failed, and Sam felt his stomach drop at how pained the archangel sounded. Gabriel must’ve noticed how unconvincing it sounded, or perhaps he saw the hurt written across Sam’s face, because he dropped the facade as well, slumping over again.

And maybe Sam would’ve further processed the implications of such, but the question he had been trying to bite back slipped his tongue. “You’re alive?” It was a reasonable question after all, even if death had grown to have a different meaning to him. “How are you alive?”

Gabriel let out a choked sound that might have been a laugh had he not been drowning in the exhaustion that slipped through. “I’ve been asking myself the same question.” He seemed to give up on keeping himself upright, letting his hand slip from the surface he used as support and his legs buckled under him. Sam would’ve rushed forward had he not been paralyzed in place. Something in his head was screaming in both relief and dread.

It flashed back to Gabriel’s sacrifice, the desperation in his voice when he told them he wasn’t running anymore. And the dread Sam felt upon the return to the bunker, one fewer person drowned out by the many they gained. He had connected the pieces, allowed the reality of Gabriel’s death to sink in, along with the failure he felt for not doing more to stop it.

That snapped the spell, and the same feelings of guilt pushed Sam forward to the collapsed angel. He placed a hand below his shoulder, helping to guide him to sit on the steps. There were no thanks in response, but Gabriel offered Sam a small smile. The hunter returned it, keeping his hand on Gabriel’s arm, gently rubbing.

Despite their shared history, not positive in any sense, Sam couldn’t help but breathe in relief seeing, _feeling,_ the archangel alive in front of him. “I’m glad you are.” The words slipped out before he could stop them. Gabriel only looked confused and perhaps a bit shocked in return. “Alive, that is. I’m glad you’re alive.”

The angel took a deep breath, exhaling with a shudder. “So am I, kiddo.” And Sam could blatantly see it was a lie.

* * *

 With less convincing than Sam would’ve deemed necessary, Gabriel agreed to stay in the bunker, giving no hint to how long he would linger around. He trudged to the room he stayed in before, closing the door behind him and neither Sam, Dean, or Cas has seen him since. Not that any of them said a word about it to each other, there hadn’t been much speaking after Gabriel’s return, but they had all remained in the library, without the archangel’s presence.

Only after Sam reached the last page of his book did he realize how much time passed. Even without a single window in sight, his eyes felt heavy and sleep was pulling at him, enough to tell him it was likely far past sunset. He returned the book to its shelf and made his way towards his room, hearing footsteps behind him indicating Dean had a similar idea.

He considered stopping by the room Gabriel claimed, deciding against it when he heard the footsteps following him seize after the closing of a door, Dean entering his room to sleep. The archangel was likely sleeping too, no―he didn’t need sleep. At least not when his grace levels were normal. Which, considering how easily he collapsed earlier, they likely weren’t. Perhaps it was a good idea to check on Gabriel, just to be sure. But exhaustion weighed him down, and his room was right there. And after all, Gabriel had been rather insistent on being left to himself. The need to rest won out and, kicking his shoes off, Sam collapsed onto his bed.

When he heard footsteps again, his first though was that Dean couldn’t sleep and needed to walk around. Yet the sound came from the opposite side of his room, and maybe it was Cas? God knows what the angel did when the rest of the bunker was sleeping. Except God probably didn’t, being too busy disappearing to make amends with his sister to pay attention to anything else. Sam had a hard time believing that was an actual thought that crossed his mind.

Yet the footsteps stopped before they could fade into the distance, and Sam could hear the handle of his door turn before a slimmer of light reflected from the hallway into his room. Neither Dean or Cas stood in the entryway, but Gabriel instead, slouched over and vulnerable. Contrary to the rest of his posture, his hand was clenched, knuckles white as he gripped...was that the archangel blade? Reaching across his bed, Sam flicked the light on to get a better look. It was, and Gabriel moved to hold it out to Sam expectantly. When Sam didn’t move further, the archangel nearly whimpered, a strangled sound as if trying to hold back more. “Take it, _please._ ”

And Sam did, swinging his legs over the side of his bed and reaching out halfway to take the blade from the angel’s now shaking hand. He heard an airy _thank you,_ forced out with a heavy breath. Even with the blade out of his grip, Gabriel remained unmoving, his hand simply falling back to his side.

Sam always thought of himself as good at reading people, he did have the champion of repressed emotions as a brother after all, but Gabriel was difficult. From the first time they had met, when Sam was disillusioned into believed the man he was talking to was simply a janitor, Gabriel had a way of hiding what he felt behind a facade. Whatever had happened to that facade now, and Sam had a few ideas about such, it wasn’t doing the job it had done so well many times before. The hunter could see right through it, read Gabriel like an open book. And the archangel’s eyes, clouded as they were, were focused on the blade Sam held, his body stiff as he surveyed Sam’s every moment.

So Sam opened the the drawer at his bedside and placed the blade there instead, hiding it from sight. True to his suspicions, Gabriel relaxed instantly, another _thank you_ breathed out as he did so, this time with an almost sob of relief. “Sam,” he choked out, and it wasn't hard to see he was holding back tears.

“Yeah, I’m here. You’re safe here, okay.” But it didn’t seem to do anything, and Sam began to realize that perhaps he read the situation wrong. He considered standing, helping to guide the angel to sit, but Gabriel stumbled forward first. Sam caught him, hands holding Gabriel’s arms to keep him up as he half-leaned, half-sat on the bed next to Sam. He clutched as Sam’s shirt, pulling himself closer to the hunter.

“ _Sam._ ” And this time he let the tears fall, burying his face against Sam’s chest as he was lifted fully from the floor to curl up against the taller man on the bed.

With a glance at the archangel enveloped in his arms, Sam decided for certain that he missed something, misread some cue to what was happening; that this was more than the nightmare, memory of what had happened to him that Sam thought it was. “I’m right here,” he continued to reassure, accompanying his words with the press of his hand against Gabriel’s back. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Sam could feel a shuddering breath against his chest, and the angel pulled back, meeting Sam’s gaze with his own. “I think―” He quickly averted the gaze once again, taking a moment to watch the wall as he steadied himself again. Had he not known better, not understood that Gabriel had brought himself to Sam’s room for a reason, continued to stay and push forward despite the panic he was subsiding, Sam would’ve said that Gabriel didn’t need to say a word to explain himself. But he did understand, and whatever it was that the angel was working himself up to say, he needed to say it. Sam had the patience to wait, stay quiet and soothe Gabriel as he worked to calm himself again. “What you said, when you saw me again.” Sam nodded, understanding. “Sam, I think you saved my life.”  

It was a few moments before Sam could process the words, making connections in his head, interpreting the meaning. Upon realization, Sam’s face shifted to worry, Gabriel noticing soon after and reaching his hand to brush his fingers across Sam’s cheek in comfort. “Are you saying what I think you are?” Hesitation followed, Gabriel reaching his hand back, eyes widening. “I just--I need to know so I can help.” The hesitation he had hoped the words would relieve didn’t follow. “I want to help you, Gabriel.”

Those following words gave the result Sam had hoped for, Gabriel nodding slightly, despite remaining distant. “I was dead one second and standing back here alive the next, okay. I didn’t have anywhere to go and everything I stood for was gone anyways. What else was I supposed to do?” He tensed again, and Sam quickly moved to press his hand against Gabriel’s back as he spoke again.

“I’m not mad, okay. Not accusing you of anything,” he eased the tension away. “I just want to understand.”

“Oh,” the angel’s voice cracked, his head tilted in confusion. “You want to know what I mean?” Sam nodded. “That’s all?” Another nod. Gabriel still seemed to fail to comprehend, but he continued regardless. “I didn’t have anything so I thought that maybe if I showed up here, it wouldn’t be too...I don’t know,” he groaned in frustration that boarderlined panic. “It wouldn’t be too surprising? And the blade was here anyways, so I could take that and leave and you would never hear from me again because there’d be no one to hear from anyways.”

On instinct, Sam pulled the angel closer, holding him close because for all he knew, a few words unsaid and he wouldn’t have the angel curled against him in the first place. And something about the closeness of it struck Gabriel, pressing his head close against Sam’s shoulders, tears leaving wet streaks on his shirt.

“I showed up here with the plan to kill myself and the you said you were glad I was back and I couldn’t.” Words were muffled, but the emotions behind them remained heard. Desperation, fear, but Sam could make out thankfulness alongside them. “I tried, Sam. Found the blade and tried to end it. I sat there for hours until I was too exhausted to think about it any longer. And then I realized that I didn’t want to.”

 _Good,_ Sam wanted to soothe. _Good, you’re still here and I’m so glad and I’ll do anything to keep it that way._ But the words couldn’t form and all he could do was bury his head is the angel’s hair and let his tears of relief fall.

“So thank you, so much, for saving me.” Turning his head up, he pulled back from Sam again, looking up to offer a smile, small and trembling, but genuine.

And this time words formed with the smile Sam gave in return. “I’ll always be here to save you.”


End file.
